They didn’t want him any more, accepted Fletcher Christian. Or need him, even. Perhaps they never had. He’d served a function, like a paper flag behind which people could walk on a parade. Now the event was over, so the flag could be put aside, an occasional reminder but not something to be concerned about.
Certainly not followed.
Only to Isabella was he important, he thought, smiling across the clearing in front of their house. She became aware of his attention and smiled back, contentedly. Their older son was clutching her arm, watching her breast-feed the child born only weeks earlier. Christian wondered if the woman knew how necessary she was to him. Without Isabella, he thought, he would have nothing.
He cosseted her too much, he accepted. She was a Tahitian, after all, a woman used to every sort of freedom. So his attitude would be unnatural. And he knew the other women gossiped that he stayed too much around the house and laughed that on an island the size of Pitcairn he always wanted to know where she was going and how long she would be away from the house.
And it was stupid, he knew.
But he couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to, even. Isabella and the other women thought of it as jealousy, he decided. So let them. Perhaps the mutineers did, too. His behaviour would be as odd to them as it was to the natives. He didn’t give a damn what they thought, any of them. And it wasn’t jealousy, not the normal sort, anyway. It was fear, he knew, a numbing, suddenly-awake-in-the-night sort of fear from which there was no release. He had nothing else but Isabella: nothing at all. He should have felt more for the children, of course, but the emotion wasn’t there. He loved them, he supposed, in the accepted way. He worried when the older boy got too near the rocks and had been anxious when the baby had developed a cough, so soon after being born. But that was concern more than love. And that’s what he had for Isabella. Love. He supposed he’d loved her before they had sailed from Tahiti, all those years ago, on the homeward voyage to England, although he hadn’t realised it then because it was an emotion he did not know how to recognise. Bligh had known it, he guessed. He’d called her a whore, Christian remembered, the very day they had sailed. He strained for the recollection.
‘… sad farewell to your whore, like all the others …’ Something like that. Yes, Bligh had known.
But it had taken Christian several years to realise what it was he felt about her. And become frightened at that acceptance.
‘I love you,’ he said. How many times did he say that during the course of a single day? Too many, he thought. The words had become flattened by over-use.
Her reaction to the expression of affection always amused him. She nodded her head vigorously, as if agreeing it was right he should do so, then made the usual response.
‘Me too.’
‘You should say you love me,’ he chided, gently. Her command of English was very good, far better than his Tahitian, but sometimes the words refused to form in the proper queue.
‘I love you,’ she said, accepting the correction and gazing down, shyly. It was odd, thought Christian, how a woman who knew no inhibition in physical love could still be embarrassed at the words.
‘I love Thursday,’ she added, kissing the older boy. ‘And Charles, too. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ he assured her. ‘That’s right; that’s very right.’
Was that a rebuke? he wondered, an indication that she knew he did not feel about the boys as he should? No, he dismissed, immediately.
The older boy would be four years old soon, realised the mutineer. It had seemed fitting at the time to name him after the day and the month in which he had been born, Thursday October Christian. Now it seemed wrong. But then most of the things he had done seemed wrong, thinking about them in the lonely exile of Pitcairn.
Nothing had been right, he reflected, after that April morning so long ago. Nothing at all. Christian was surprised the recrimination was still so bitter. Immediately he found the answer. With no future, it was natural to live constantly in the past.
‘… not a day without torment …’
Bligh’s words were as clear now as they had been when the man had stood in the stern of the launch, mouthing his threats while the rabble who had followed the uprising had jeered and milled about him on the poop.
And the man had been right, accepted Christian. The anguish had been with him at the moment of mutiny and had hardly left him since. Had it not been for Isabella, Christian would have long ago carried out the idea that had come to him as he had walked to the mizzen and cut away the sounding lead. The cliffs upon which the women they had brought with them from Tahiti scrambled and clawed for birds’ eggs were very high and the sea-washed rocks below savagely sharp. It would all be over very quickly. Just a little pain, that’s all. And now physical pain seemed so unimportant, compared to the constant mental ache.
He’d known from the start how difficult it would be to get the men to accept his leadership, he remembered. Quintal, now the constant challenger, had shown his attitude within minutes of the mutiny, even before Bligh had been seized. So their rejection of his command should not have irritated as much as it did. But it wasn’t really their refusal to obey, he admitted. Their lack of respect hurt far more. There were hardly any of them who didn’t regret the situation in which the mutiny had placed them. And they blamed him for leading them into it, behaving always as if he had secured their support by trickery. Which was unfair, he decided. Bloody unfair. Only one man was to blame for what had happened that day aboard the Bounty.
William Bligh.
Had he survived? wondered Christian. Unlikely, he decided, realistically. The mutineer knew too well how hostile the natives could be, even confronted with the visible evidence of a heavily armed ship like the Bounty. And less than twenty-four hours after the launch had been set adrift, those torrential thunderstorms had lashed the whole area, so what chance had a small boat, with only seven inches of freeboard, stood in conditions like that?
No, he thought, Bligh was dead. Thank God. Yes, he decided, expanding the thought. Thank God. It was right that he should be dead. What if he hadn’t perished? What if he had reached safety somewhere, as he had feared the man might in those early, fear-driven days? If Bligh had survived, he would have carried out his threat, Christian knew. There wouldn’t be a civilised part of the world where a warrant did not exist for his immediate arrest. He closed his eyes, visualising how the launch had wallowed in water soon to be driven into waves over thirty feet high. No, he reassured himself. Bligh would be dead. Had to be.
And I might well be, reflected Christian, settling back to his reminiscence. His was a living death, made bearable only by Isabella.
It had been a good idea, he convinced himself, to have the men make uniforms from the spare sails immediately after the uprising. Natives were impressed by the manner of a man’s dress: Bligh had taught him that. For their six months in Tahiti, the captain had sweated daily in his coat, vest and sword, knowing they automatically earned the respect of every islander he encountered. The arrival upon an unknown island of a ship in which the men all dressed the same would increase tenfold the natives’ acceptance, he had argued. And so they had obeyed him, he remembered. Only just. But they’d accepted the order, not so much because he had given it but because that residue of discipline from Bligh’s command was still there and because they had been too frightened then to oppose him, realising completely in those initial hours what they had done.
They’d complained. But without any real strength. Quintal had led the dissent, of course, with his bumptious arrogance.
‘Worse than Bligh,’ Christian had overheard him say, three days after the uprising, as the men had sat cross-legged on deck, stitching at the seams.
‘Good teacher,’ Mickoy had replied. And they’d both laughed, enjoying their joke. But even that had been gained from the reassurance of the past. They were as scared as everybody else, Christian had known, despite the bravado and the cursing. The rum-drinking had made that obvious. Christian had made no effort to stop it, knowing he could not succeed by open challenge. The men would have rejected him immediately, taking from him the thin platform of authority upon which he still stood. So every night they had washed away their apprehension until they were unconscious, the Bounty nosing almost unmanned through the Pacific swell.
Had he realised their feelings, like a true leader would have done, then perhaps they would have accepted him in the role he had then sought. But he had been too engrossed in his own remorse to consider theirs.
So all he had done was inflate to ridiculous proportions the need for uniforms, carping as Bligh had done in the past, knowing the Quintal comparison was inevitable, but careless of it.
Whether or not the uniforms were made had become an issue of major importance in his mind. If the outfits were completed, he had convinced himself, then everything was going to be all right: they would acknowledge his leadership, not put every order to the committee of dissidents that appeared to be forming. Without consultation, conscious of his role as their nominal leader, he had chosen Tubai as a refuge. Tahiti was obviously the first place any searchers would look if Bligh survived – he had left the Bounty sneering at their eagerness to get back to it. Tubai was only three hundred miles away, so conditions should have been almost identical, he had decided.
But they weren’t.
No women had come giggling to meet them, offering themselves. No men had paddled out in canoes, anxious to trade.
Instead, there had been almost constant hostility, with the mutineers having to fight for every yard of land they wanted. Christian had decided upon a fort-like compound, with the ship’s guns mounted at the four corners to repel any searchers. His efforts to create it had become ridiculous. As quickly as the sailors dug trenches and created earth and wattle walls, the Tubains tore them down. Every food and water expedition had become the target for guerilla attacks. The night after Christian had ordered the ship’s guns fired, as a show of force, the natives had crept undetected into their compound, stolen muskets and lashed them together in the shape of a funeral pyre to mock them when they awoke.
Christian had tried to minimise the defeat.
‘Tahiti, lads,’ he had urged, as they had manhandled the guns back aboard. ‘Think on it – the women we know! The friends we have there, who’ll feed and shelter us without expecting anything in return!’
Predictably it had been Quintal who had focused their disgust. Christian had never been able positively to prove it, of course, because they would have laughed at him had he enquired. But he was sure it had been Quintal’s idea to bundle together the uniforms upon which he had been so insistent and commit them overboard, in imitation burial.
Had that been the end of his control? he wondered. Perhaps not entirely. They still took sea orders from him, but even that gesture was without meaning. They obeyed because he was the only man left who could read all the charts and use every instrument. It was more a case of his working for them than they for him. He’d been let down by his friends, Christian decided. George Stewart, the damned man who’d first brought out the idea of an uprising, had lost stomach for it by the time they had reached Tahiti. Accepting without apparent concern the risk of arrest from any search boats that would come had Bligh survived, it had been Stewart who had led the break-up of the mutineers. Christian had intended to leave behind those who had been unwilling participants, like the midshipman Heywood and the carpenters Charles Norman and Thomas McIntosh and the blind violinist, Michael Byrn. But he hadn’t expected so many others to risk a rope’s end against the uncertainty of following him in the Bounty. Twenty-four men had remained on the ship when Bligh had been set adrift. And when he had sailed the second time from Tahiti, in the middle of that September night in 1789 to trap aboard some of the sleeping women who might have been unwilling to accompany them into exile, the number had dwindled to eight.
Nearly all of those who had stayed behind had been the most willing mutineers, he remembered. Ellison, who’d wanted to run Bligh through; Birkitt, whom he had feared might band together with Churchill and Quintal and overthrow him during the actual mutiny; Churchill himself, the man who’d done more shouting than anybody; Thompson, who’d guarded the arms chest and by so doing guaranteed the success of the uprising.
Christian sighed, enjoying the sun upon his face. How quickly they’d lost faith in him, he reflected. Just over four months and men he’d regarded as his most ardent supporters had decided the possibility of death was preferable to his leadership.
Would they still be in Tahiti, he wondered, undetected and surrounded by every sexual indulgence and luxury? How good their life would be if that were so, instead of being trapped like he was among a community of little more than twenty people, with hardly any of them prepared to engage in the most trivial conversation.
The remark of Quintal’s had been accurate, he thought. He had become just like Bligh, despised and ostracised by everyone around him.
He would have sailed back to Tahiti if he had had a ship, Christian knew. And been glad, almost, if a British man-o’-war had been waiting in Matavai harbour to arrest him.
But he didn’t have the Bounty. It had disappeared in flames, before they had even had a chance properly to strip it and certainly before any destruction had been decided, either by him or by discussion with the other hard-core mutineers. It had been Edward Young, he remembered, stiff-legged from the rum he had consumed, goaded by Quintal, both of them groping drunkenly from the hold with torches in their hands, giggling at what they’d done. Young had almost died in the blaze, recalled Christian. Pity he hadn’t. It had been Young, following so closely upon Stewart, who had fomented the idea of a mutiny. Twice, thought Christian, he had been trapped by the man.
And now the mutineers appeared more willing to take notice of Young than they did of him.
Perhaps, thought Christian, he should suggest they build another escape craft, like the one they had constructed when the women had become so discontented with life on Pitcairn. It had only been done to placate them, with no care to trim or design and the vessel had capsized immediately they had launched it. convincing the women that return to Tahiti was impossible. But they could get back, Christian knew. Providing enough attention was paid this time to the balance of the vessel. And that they planned their departure for the best weather, to avoid the squalls and storms.
Being on Pitcairn was like being locked in a cupboard, Christian thought. On Tahiti he would be able to breathe again, as if the door had suddenly been thrown open.
And to return would have a practical advantage as well. There was a dangerously uneven balance of men and women on Pitcairn. Jealousy was building up, he knew. When it burst out, it would bring bloodshed.
There was no question, thought Christian, that he would kill rather than share Isabella with anyone. He might have stood back from the commitment to murder in the past, but about her he had no doubts; to keep Isabella entirely to himself there was nothing he would not do.
‘Why do you look so angry?’
He smiled across at her question. Thursday had become bored, he saw, and was striding off fat-bottomed to join the other children.
How lovely she was, he decided, studying the woman, admiring the gleaming, polished hair that made a curtain down her back, her open face always poised for laughter, even here on Pitcairn.
It would have been wonderful to drive with her in the carriage to Brigham Church on a Sunday and then go back, for family dinner, to the farmhouse at Moorland Close, aware of the admiration that would come from his brothers for having captured such a beauty.
‘I was thinking how much I loved you,’ he said. It would be good to have other words, he thought, rather than those she must be bored at hearing.
‘I laugh when I love. I am not angry,’ she said, frowning.
She would never manage the confusing nuances of the language, thought Christian. He was beginning to prefer the simple directness of Tahitian himself.
‘It was an angry thought,’ he tried. ‘I was imagining how it would be to lose you.’
There was never a moment, he thought, when that concern was far from his mind.
‘Lose me?’
Again she frowned, head lodged to one side in misunderstanding.
‘But how could you lose me? I am yours …’
The worry deepened as the doubt occurred to her.
‘… unless you are not happy and don’t want me …’
He went to her, urgently, cupping her face between his hands and staring down into her wet-black eyes.
‘Oh my darling,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever think that. No matter what happens, there will never be a moment when I don’t want you …’
He paused, recalling his earlier thoughts.
‘… if you were to die. Or be taken from me in a way I couldn’t prevent, then I would kill myself. I’ve lost everything. Except you.’
She smiled, still uncertain.
‘Are you sure … I would understand …’
He brought his hands around, so that she could not speak.
‘So sure,’ he said. ‘So very sure. I’ll always be there, when you turn to look for me.’
‘The constant lovers.’
Christian recognised the voice, without turning to face Quintal.
‘The sort of tenderness that Sarah might appreciate,’ retorted Christian. It was no secret that Quintal beat the girl who had happily followed him from Tahiti and to whom he had given an English name, as they all had to their women.
‘She’s happy enough,’ blurred Quintal. He was drunk, Christian saw, as he was by mid-afternoon most days. William Mickoy had brought with him to Pitcairn the ability to make a still that he had learned as a distillery worker in Scotland and once the rum had been exhausted, they had both adapted to the native drink made from the root of the taro plant.
‘What do you want?’ demanded Christian, hostilely.
‘Want? Why should I want anything?’
‘Social visits aren’t a practice on Pitcairn,’ rejected Christian.
Quintal nodded, despite his drunkenness.
‘Aye,’ he said, sadly. ‘That’s right enough. I never thought that on a South Sea island, where it is always summer, with food waiting on the trees to be picked and a woman content with me, I should be so unhappy.’
The attitude of them all, thought Christian. Boredom was eating into them as destructively as the worms that had devoured the boat in which he had wanted to set Bligh adrift.
‘He’s a fine child,’ tried Quintal, gesturing after Thursday.
The mutineer nodded, pleased with the admiration despite his dislike of the man.
‘That’s hardly surprising, though,’ continued Quintal, smiling down at Isabella. ‘With such a lovely mother.’
Christian frowned at the crude compliment. He wished her breasts had been covered. She sat quite unashamed, smiling up innocently at the man’s remark.
‘What are the others doing?’ asked Christian, to regain the man’s attention.
He knew by now he should have adjusted to the fact, but it always distressed him that so little happened to them on the island that there was virtually nothing to talk about. They were atrophying, he thought, like the fossils they sometimes found in the rocks on the seashore, among the relics of the Polynesians who had long ago abandoned the island.
‘Tending their plots,’ said Quintal, uninterested. ‘Some of the women are egg-collecting, up on the cliffs.’
‘I think we should be careful of that,’ said Christian. ‘Those rocks are dangerous.’
Quintal looked up sharply at the thought that Christian was attempting to issue an order, even now. There’d been enough of that immediately after the mutiny, when the damned man had behaved as if he were a reincarnation of Bligh. Quintal relaxed. Christian was staring into the ground, hardly aware of what he was saying. The time when Christian could issue orders had long passed and everyone accepted it.
‘They’re safe enough,’ Quintal said. ‘They’re as sure-footed as goats.’
‘I was thinking of Tahiti today,’ said Christian, almost to himself.
‘I often do,’ confessed Quintal.
‘Pity the Bounty was destroyed.’
‘Would you go back?’ demanded the sailor.
‘If I could,’ conceded Christian.
‘It could mean arrest. And a hanging.’
Christian looked slowly up at the man who had been the first to follow him, holding his eyes. Quintal was bloated with alcohol, he saw, his nose purpled with aimless veins and his eyes wet and rheumy.
‘Aye,’ nodded Quintal, at last. ‘It would be good to go back.’
Bligh stood easily at the conn, his body shifting automatically with the gentle movement of the ship, gazing through the evening haze towards the shoreline of Plymouth. The early lights glittered at him, far away, and he smiled, sighing.
It was always a satisfying moment, coming home. And he had so much to come home to, he reflected, handing the eyeglass to the officer of the watch and leaving the poop for the seclusion of his cabin.
He wanted to be alone, to savour the anticipation of the arrival in London. It would be wonderful, he knew, surpassing everything that had happened before. Deservedly so.
He had succeeded. Again. So it would happen once more. The adulation of a London society still enraptured by his survival from the Bounty. The admiration of a King who properly recognised him as the most brilliant navigator of the day. And now the additional gratitude of all those landowners whose fortunes he had guaranteed on this second expedition by successfully transplanting the breadfruit.
Nelson was more famous, he conceded. As much for the scandalous affair with the Hamilton woman as for his seafaring ability. But he was the only one. No one else could match his achievements. Bligh decided. Nor were likely to. So he had earned the fame. And the respect.
Betsy would be so proud, he knew, remembering her nervousness and the tears and the fainting spells at the excitement of being received at St James’s Palace by King George and Queen Charlotte after the survival from the Bounty. But this time the children were older and would be better able to appreciate how important their father was to his country. And he was important, Bligh knew. His name would feature in the history books.
They’d berth at Plymouth at first light, he recalled. But it would be another week before he could get up the Channel to Portsmouth and then to Greenwich. So he’d send his wife a letter by horse courier, warning her of his impending arrival. She would be as surprised as Sir Joseph Banks, to whom another letter should go, so the Royal Society could inform the King of the details and prepare for the necessary reception.
According to everyone’s calculations, he should still be a fortnight away. But that was because the estimates were made for ordinary sailors. And William Bligh was not an ordinary sailor. Which Britain now knew.
Normally an abstemious man, Bligh poured himself a glass of Madeira and stood, making a solitary toast.
‘Success,’ he mouthed, very softly, feeling slightly embarrassed. ‘Sweet success.’
And it would be sweet, he knew. Sir Joseph had repeated the promise, just before he had departed for his second voyage to Tahiti, of a gold medal from the Society if he got the breadfruit to the West Indies. And the only person who could possibly make the presentation would be the King. So it would be the court again, with all its pomp and ceremony. He hoped Betsy wouldn’t faint this time.
Would there be more? wondered the man, hopefully. He had guaranteed the fortune of already rich men by this voyage. A gold medal would be the public recognition of his efforts. But there should be another reward. How pleasant it would be, he thought, if the plantation owners could be made to realise he existed on the meagre salary of a ship’s captain, without any outside income. And that to sustain the position in London to which the fame of his exploits was thrusting him cost a great deal of money. Perhaps, thought Bligh, he could find an acceptable way to broach the problem with Sir Joseph. The man knew everyone of influence in London. And could organise a privy purse within weeks if he were acquainted with the need. And there was a very definite need. Betsy never complained, but Bligh knew she found life very different in London from what she had known as the daughter of a rich land- and shipowner on the Isle of Man. There was as much cruelty as kindness in the society into which they were being admitted. Gossip and tittle-tattle was the communication of the women and Bligh was aware his wife would have enjoyed a larger wardrobe and a greater selection of jewellery in order to compete at the functions to which she was daily invited.
Yes, he decided, taking a second Madeira, he’d tell Sir Joseph of his difficulties. It would be an easy subject to introduce. He would approach the man for advice, as if expecting nothing but counsel. Sir Joseph was a kind man: perhaps the best friend he had. He would take the nod and act swiftly, Bligh was sure. He paused, considered, then dismissed a new idea: he would not tell Betsy his plans in the letter he was to write. It might create too much hope and he hated disappointing her. In any case, in the holds were bolts of silk he had purchased to make several new dresses. So whatever happened, she would not be embarrassed this season.
What would have happened to the arrested mutineers? he wondered, suddenly, his mind moving on. He had heard from an incoming man-o’-war in Antigua that they had been seized at Tahiti. He’d always known they’d return there, to the sex. Had he not written as much, in the log supported unsteadily on his knee in the stern of the launch, not three hours after they had been set adrift?
The log would be available as evidence, together with the affidavit he had sworn before embarking on the current voyage. Would the court martial have begun? It hardly mattered. Because Fletcher Christian wouldn’t be there. Only his punishment was important. Bligh had harried the officers on the warship, after hearing their news, demanding to know the names of those arrested, even reciting from memory the identities of the scum who had overturned him. They hadn’t known the names, not all of them anyway. But they had been sure of one thing. Fletcher Christian, whose part in the infamy everybody in England knew because of the account Bligh had published, was not among them.
So what had happened to him? That was the only thing of interest, not the fate of those who had stupidly followed. Let him be dead, prayed Bligh, fervently. Let him have died as painfully as he had expected me to die. Bastard.
He said the word, aloud, his voice high, then jerked around, alert for any sound in the alley outside that would have indicated he could have been overheard.
Only the creaking of the slumbering ship came back to him and he relaxed.
‘Bastard,’ he said again, quieter this time.
He sat at his desk, pulling quill and paper towards him. He’d write first to Sir Joseph, he decided. And ask about the court martial, so that the man could be prepared for the questions upon his arrival at Greenwich. If it had not been already convened, then perhaps he could give evidence in person, thought Bligh.
It was important that he should, if possible. And find out what had happened to the man he hated.
It was going well, decided James Fryer, feeling the apprehension seep from him. Very well indeed. He had been nervous, imagining the angular-faced President would turn his evidence into an inquisition, but for the past two hours Lord Hood and the rest of the court martial officers had sat in attentive silence, only occasionally making notes.
Now the Bounty master waited, his account finished, alert for the questions.
Lord Hood straightened in his chair, leaning forward on the long table that had been positioned across the main cabin. Thank God the thunderstorms had cleared the air, he thought. It was much more comfortable today. He’d sit during the afternoon, he decided.
The President had made few notes, relying on his memory for the points he wanted clarified.
‘So until the moment when Quintal and Sumner burst into your cabin, at the same time as you heard the captain’s shouts, you had no indication whatsoever that the crew were in a mutinous state?’ he queried.
‘No, sir. None whatsoever.’
‘Yet Fletcher Christian, who led it, was a fellow officer … and Stewart and Young both midshipmen … you’d have been in daily contact?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No, sir,’ rejected Hood, sharply. Fryer jumped, startled.
‘I cannot accept,’ challenged the admiral, ‘that there had been no hint of this matter before.’
‘I knew nothing of it,’ insisted Fryer, eyes fixed just above Lord Hood’s head.
‘Was the Bounty a happy ship?’
The question came from Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hammond, who sat on Hood’s right. As they had risen the previous day, Hood had decreed other members of the court could put questions directly, instead of going through the President. The stupid formality added hours to any enquiry, the admiral had insisted.
Fryer shifted, uncomfortably. It was going to be an inquisition, he thought.
‘Well, was it?’ pressed Hood, curious at the master’s hesitation.
‘I have known happier vessels,’ tried Fryer.
‘Sir,’ warned Lord Hood, softly. ‘We are enquiring here into one of the worst cases of mutiny so far to be examined by a naval court … a case in which, if the evidence we have so far heard is true, a captain and seventeen of his men were cast adrift to what should have been their certain death …’
He paused, staring at Fryer until the man met his gaze.
‘I will not accept, Mr Fryer, the sort of answer you have just given. I will repeat the question. Was the Bounty a happy ship?’
‘No, sir,’ said Fryer, shortly.
‘Why not?’ demanded Snape Hammond. He was a crumpled, mottled-faced man who sat slumped in his chair in an attitude of inattention which was invariably misconstrued as boredom.
‘There were several reasons,’ said Fryer.
Then let’s have them,’ said Lord Hood, briskly. The man’s reluctance to answer was annoying the President. There was more to the mutiny than they had so far learned from the evidence, he decided.
‘… it had been a long voyage,’ suggested Fryer. ‘We had had a bad time trying to get around the Horn, fighting gales for most of a month before turning back …’
‘Conditions encountered by His Majesty’s vessels every week of the year,’ rejected Snape Hammond, positively. ‘And such conditions were long past, anyway …’
Fryer swallowed. Lord Hood ruled his life by discipline, the Bounty’s master knew. To indicate criticism of Bligh’s treatment of the crew would meet with no sympathy.
‘There were times,’ groped Fryer, uncertainly, ‘when the men complained about their food. When they felt they were being badly treated …’
Was the man a fool? wondered Hood. There wasn’t a ship in the King’s navy upon which men weren’t disgruntled with their victuals.
‘This enquiry would be greatly speeded, Mr Fryer, if you were able to respond directly to what we ask,’ threatened the President, tightly. ‘Why, sir, was the Bounty an unhappy ship?’
‘It was often difficult,’ responded Fryer, ‘to adjust to the ways of the captain.’
It was a bad reply and when he saw their reaction, the nervousness lumped in his stomach. The court martial officers sat unmoving, every eye upon him. Each man was a captain, a demander of unquestioned obedience from the rabble, often snatched from the streets of Portsmouth or Greenwich or Liverpool and pressed into service under the King’s Regulations. To imply that a captain’s conduct was wrong, as he just had, would need a lot of justification.
‘We want to know more of that, sir,’ said Captain Sir Roger Curtis, from the centre of the officers’ bench.
‘Captain Bligh had strong ideas about the diet of the men,’ Fryer tried to recover. ‘He insisted they eat and drink certain things.’
Hood sighed, irritably. The man was trying to twist away, he decided.
‘To what purpose?’ he demanded.
‘To keep away the scurvy.’
‘And did it?’ asked Snape Hammond.
Fryer nodded. ‘There was some illness, just before we arrived in Tahiti. The ship’s surgeon said it was scurvy, but Captain Bligh disagreed.
Hood frowned. ‘Had Captain Bligh any medical qualifications?’
‘Not that I know of, sir.’
‘One outbreak of something that might have been scurvy, on an outward voyage of ten months,’ elaborated Snape Hammond. ‘That would indicate the captain’s victualling was right and proper?’
‘Aye, sir,’ agreed Fryer, hopefully.
Among the prisoners, Morrison was scribbling hurried reminders for his cross-examination.
‘Why, then, the discontent?’ pressed Hood.
‘The men didn’t like it, sir.’
‘Seamen don’t like many things, Mr Fryer. That’s not sufficient to make an unhappy ship,’ insisted the President.
‘No, sir,’ accepted Fryer, dutifully.
‘Then perhaps you’d explain properly what you meant by saying it was difficult to adjust to the captain’s way,’ said Snape Hammond.
He had no choice, decided Fryer. But it would hurt him, he knew. There were twelve officers on the court martial panel, with influence throughout every fleet. He would be condemned within weeks as the man who had described the Bounty’s commander as a poor captain. That Bligh deserved that criticism, instead of the hero-worship he’d received, was immaterial. Fryer’s only concern was that his own career would not be harmed by what was said at the enquiry.
‘Captain Bligh,’ he began slowly, still seeking a safe course, ‘was a very violent man … of unpredictable temper …’
They didn’t understand, thought Fryer, seeing the expression of doubt and suspicion settling on their faces. It was difficult for anyone to understand what Bligh had really been like, he accepted.
‘You mean he occasionally shouted and cursed?’ smiled Snape Hammond, attempting sarcasm and looking among his fellow officers for smirks of appreciation.
‘No, sir,’ said Fryer, positively. ‘I mean he always shouted and cursed … without a moment’s pause …’
‘Mr Fryer,’ reminded Snape Hammond, annoyed his joke had soured. ‘We are talking of the King’s navy, not a finishing school for English gentlewomen. Are you seriously asking this court to accept that men were driven to the point of mutiny and murder because their captain shouted and swore at them?’
It did sound ridiculous, realised Fryer. No one would ever know unless they had sailed with the damned man. He hoped they wouldn’t probe into the open boat business, thought Fryer. They must know of the enquiry in Timor.
‘I mean, sir,’ replied the master, ‘that the captain’s criticism of everything and everyone was like water pouring constantly upon a stone, until it destroyed the strongest resistance. No one was ever right, except Captain Bligh.’
Hood sighed, better pleased. They were getting there, he thought. It was a laborious process, but gradually the evidence was coming out. The President decided upon an experiment. The prisoner Morrison, who had decided to defend himself, had actually remained on the Bounty and might know more than most. Not only that, he would not have the apparent reluctance of Fryer to speak about it. And the lawyer Bunyan, entrusted with saving young Heywood, was sitting flushed at his table, as if bursting with questions to ask. He would allow the defence to interrogate Fryer, Hood decided. The court could always re-examine upon fresh evidence obtained.
He muttered briefly to the officers alongside him, then nodded to Bunyan. The young lawyer started up immediately, grating the chair over the decking in his eagerness. Fryer faced him warily, conscious the man would be better briefed than the court martial officers had been.
‘Mr Fryer,’ lured Bunyan, gently. ‘Will you tell the court if, at any time, you saw my client, midshipman Peter Heywood, actively participating in the uprising upon the Bounty?’
‘No, sir,’ replied Fryer, relieved at the first question, ‘I did not.’
‘Did you at any time sec him under arms?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you recall seeing him at all?’
Fryer considered the question.
‘No,’ he admitted, at last. ‘I do not remember seeing him.’
‘Why would that be, do you suppose?’
Fryer shrugged. This was an easier examination, he decided, relaxing again. The man’s only concern was to prove the innocence of his client and about that Fryer had little doubt. He had never understood why Heywood had been arraigned.
‘I would imagine because he was detained below.’
‘Against his will?’ pressed the lawyer.
‘That would be my assumption.’
‘That was possible, was it?’ asked Bunyan.
‘Sir?’ said Fryer.
‘It was possible for the mutineers to detain those unwilling to participate in the insurrection?’
Fryer smiled at the stupidity of the question.
‘Of course, sir,’ he said. ‘They were armed, after all.’
‘Yes, Mr Fryer,’ seized Bunyan. ‘They were armed. And how could that have been, when according to regulations the keys to the arms chests should have been in your possession?’
Fryer felt the attention of the officers to his left and bit at the inside of his cheek. He’d been trapped, he thought, annoyed.
‘The keys were not in my possession, sir,’ he admitted.
‘Oh, Mr Fryer?’ said Bunyan, apparently surprised. ‘Why not?’
‘I had entrusted them to the armourer, Mr Coleman.’
‘Why?’
‘The habit had arisen, early in the voyage, for the men to shoot at birds and fish. It got so bad I couldn’t get a fair night’s sleep … so I gave Coleman the keys, so he could deal with the constant demands.’
What sort of man had Bligh been, wondered Hood, slumped back in his chair and happy at his decision to turn the questioning over to the defence, who could rant constantly about discipline until his men mutinied and yet be careless of how weapons were controlled on a ship unguarded by marines?
‘Is it usual for seamen to shoot fish and birds?’ probed Bunyan.
Fryer was cautious now, considering every question before replying.
‘Not uncommon,’ he said.
‘To the point where it becomes impossible for the custodian of the keys to sleep properly?’
The lawyer was very clever, decided Fryer. And very determined. Yet he seemed to have taken his questioning beyond that necessary to protect his client, Peter Heywood. Fryer wondered why. The same thought was occurring to Hood. So Bunyan was the unannounced representative of the Christian family, guessed the admiral. It meant the young man had been instructed by one of the best legal brains in the country. And that, coupled with the financial resources of the Heywood family, there had been unlimited money available to prepare for the examination.
‘Perhaps there was more of it on this voyage than others upon which I’ve sailed,’ conceded Fryer.
Bunyan was nodding, as if the answers were conforming to those he expected.
‘Why would that be, do you suppose, Mr Fryer?’
The master shifted uncomfortably. There appeared no way, he thought resentfully, that he could avoid harming his career prospects.
‘There was an abundance of birds and sharks,’ he tried. ‘And the men had time in which to hunt them.’
‘What did they do with them?’ demanded Bunyan, suddenly harsh.
‘What?’ floundered Fryer.
‘The birds and fish the men killed. What did they do with them?’
‘Ate them,’ confessed Fryer, simply.
Bunyan was smiling happily, he saw.
‘To a question from Sir Andrew Snape Hammond,’ reminded Bunyan, ‘not one hour ago, you agreed that Captain Bligh’s victualling was satisfactory. Now you tell the court that the crew’s pursuit of additional food was such it prevented you getting a good night’s sleep.’
‘A seaman can always find room for more food,’ attempted Fryer, hopefully. No one smiled, as he had thought they might.
Bunyan spread his hands towards the court, as if the master’s answer had confirmed a point he wanted to make.
‘You told my Lord Hood that until the men entered your cabin at gunpoint, you had no hint of mutiny?’ embarked Bunyan, at a new tangent.
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Not a whisper?’
‘I knew it was a discontented ship, no more.’
‘Hadn’t there been any discussion upon it?’
‘Sir?’
‘Isn’t it the practice for the senior officers, the captain and the master and the senior people, to eat together? And during these meals, aren’t the problems of the vessel discussed?’
Fryer nodded, reluctantly. ‘It is usually the practice to mess together,’ he conceded.
‘Usually?’ picked up Bunyan.
‘I did not eat with Captain Bligh,’ blurted Fryer, in sudden admission.
Bunyan was definitely a Christian man, determined the President, head shifting back and forth at the exchange between the two men. It had been an excellent idea to conduct the enquiry this way.
‘Why, sir?’ encouraged Bunyan, softly.
Fryer did not reply immediately. He stood, head bowed, trying to arrange the words in his mind so that the answer would not bring a fresh onslaught.
‘The captain and I disagreed,’ he said at last, inadequately.
‘About what?’ demanded Bunyan.
About what? mused Fryer. One didn’t disagree about one particular thing with Captain Bligh. You disagreed with everything: his arrogance and his conceit and his parsimony and his greed and his bullying. Particularly his unremitting bullying.
‘There had been numerous disagreements between us,’ said Fryer. ‘As I tried to explain earlier, it was often difficult to understand the captain. He would issue instructions one day and when one attempted to obey them in slightly different but still applicable circumstances the following day, it would be judged wrong.’
‘Are you saying he was unstable?’ jabbed Bunyan, hopefully.
‘I am saying he was unpredictable,’ refused Fryer.
Hood waited, expecting the cross-examination to continue about Bligh’s stability, but abruptly Bunyan switched direction again.
‘So Captain Bligh ate all alone?’ he suggested.
‘No,’ contradicted the master.
‘Ah,’ said Bunyan, apparently correcting himself. ‘Of course, I had overlooked the ship’s surgeon.’
‘Before his death, Mr Huggan, like me, had refused to sup with the captain,’ said Fryer, miserably.
‘Mr Huggan, too,’ pursued Bunyan. ‘Now why would that be?’
‘Mr Huggan drank a great deal,’ explained Fryer. ‘The captain objected.’
‘Is that all?’ demanded Bunyan.
There seemed few secrets about the ship that the man didn’t already know, decided Fryer, staring at Bunyan.
‘Mr Huggan objected to the captain’s conviction that he knew better on matters concerning the health of the crew,’ said Fryer.
‘So who was the rare man able to share the captain’s table without the apparent distaste of every other officer?’ pressed Bunyan.
‘Mr Christian,’ replied Fryer, softly.
The admission stirred through the court and several officers appeared to note it on pads before them.
‘Mr Christian!’ echoed Bunyan. ‘Mr Christian, whom we are told led the mutiny, was the only man able to tolerate Captain Bligh?’
Fryer’s head was almost sunken upon his chest now and sometimes it was difficult to hear the man’s replies to Bunyan’s persistence.
‘The two men had been friends for a long time,’ said Fryer.
‘How do you know?’
‘It was very clear on the early stages of the voyage, when we sailed from Portsmouth for our first stop at Tenerife.’
‘Do you know Captain Bligh’s opinion of Mr Christian?’
Fryer nodded. ‘There were indications enough,’ he said.
‘What were they?’
‘He thought Mr Christian a fine seaman’, said Fryer. ‘He promoted him second-in-command after Tenerife and showed him great attention.’
‘What do you mean by “great attention”?’ asked Bunyan. ‘Do you mean in matters of seamanship?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Fryer, doubtfully.
‘And?’ prompted Bunyan.
‘In matters of personal friendship.’
‘Give the court an illustration of what you mean, Mr Fryer,’ insisted the lawyer.
Fryer hesitated. Then he said: ‘It was no secret that the captain gave Mr Christian the key to his personal liquor cabinet, so that he could help himself whenever he saw fit. Mr Christian boasted of the favour sometimes.’
‘This was on the outward voyage?’ qualified Bunyan.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘During which time you and the late Mr Huggan became so irritated by Captain Bligh’s behaviour that you refused to sit at his table?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why didn’t Mr Christian share your irritation, do you suppose?’ asked Bunyan, ingenuously.
‘He was normally spared the captain’s temper,’ replied Fryer, as if suddenly annoyed.
Once again the lawyer surprised Hood by abandoning what appeared to be productive questioning.
‘The captain was a strict disciplinarian?’ asked Bunyan.
‘Yes,’ agreed Fryer.
‘And remained so in Tahiti, while the plants were being cultivated for transplanting?’
‘Yes,’ said Fryer, doubtful again.
‘Perhaps you’d like to qualify that answer,’ invited Bunyan, sensing the man’s attitude.
‘As I’ve said, he was a difficult man to satisfy. He had men flogged for infraction of regulations, yet permitted them to keep aboard any women they liked.’
That was not unusual, thought Hood. A common way of keeping seamen from deserting was to dispatch marines to fetch whores aboard.
‘For how long?’
‘Months, in some cases,’ enlarged Fryer.
Hood frowned. That was a stupid relaxation, decided the President. And there had been that disgusting tattooing, he remembered.
‘So the men were happy?’
‘Happy, yes, sir,’ agreed Fryer. ‘But they were often confused by the captain.’
‘And Mr Christian was still Captain Bligh’s only friend?’ demanded the lawyer.
Fryer hesitated and Bunyan waited, not hurrying the man.
‘It was different in Tahiti,’ he said at last.
‘What does that mean, Mr Fryer?’
‘They saw much less of each other. Mr Christian was appointed shore commander. He spent nearly the whole time living under canvas on the plantation established by the botanist, Mr Nelson.’
Bunyan nodded, as if the explanation had satisfied a number of doubts in his mind.
‘But they were still friends?’ he insisted.
Again Fryer hesitated and this time the lawyer pressed him.
‘But they were still friends?’ he repeated.
‘Less so,’ said Fryer.
‘Why was that?’ demanded Bunyan.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Fryer. ‘In Tahiti, something happened.’
‘What?’ intruded the President, frightened that Bunyan, whom he considered had missed questions before, might ignore this one.
‘I don’t know,’ said Fryer again, unhelpfully. ‘Mr Christian appeared to annoy Captain Bligh a great deal.’
‘Which was unusual?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did Captain Bligh manifest that annoyance?’
‘He was very savage to Mr Christian.’
‘And what was Mr Christian’s reaction?’
‘He just suffered it,’ said Fryer.
‘Knowing that you had fallen out with the captain, didn’t Mr Christian discuss the matter with you?’
‘No,’ insisted the master. ‘He did not.’
‘So you do not know his feelings at this apparent change in the captain’s behaviour towards him?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Fryer. ‘That was easy to see.’
‘And it was?’
‘Deep hurt. And distress. Captain Bligh was constantly undermining Mr Christian’s authority.’
‘So it was a very different ship that left Tahiti than that which arrived?’
The master nodded agreement.
‘Was the captain’s attention to detail the same?’ asked Bunyan. He had been speaking for almost three hours and his voice was creaking with hoarseness. He glanced down at his clerk and saw one notebook was already full. Edward Christian, waiting patiently at the inn, should be very grateful, he decided. He was establishing a picture of the Bounty far different from that which the enquiry had known when the hearing began that day.
‘Perhaps worse,’ conceded Fryer. ‘Some sails which should have been checked had been ignored and were found to be rotten. And insufficient care had been taken to protect the ship’s boats from worm; the bottom of the cutter was found to be almost eaten through. That’s why the captain wasn’t cast adrift in that boat, during the mutiny.’
‘Whose responsibility would that have been?’ came in the President again, sure of the answer.
He was lost, thought Fryer. After today’s hearing, he’d be lucky to get a berth as a common seaman in a merchant fleet.
‘I had given explicit instructions several times during our stay in Tahiti that they should be examined,’ insisted Fryer, desperately.
‘But not checked to your own satisfaction that the orders had been carried out?’ defeated the President.
‘No, sir,’ admitted Fryer.
‘So again you were at odds with the captain?’ came back Bunyan.
‘Not as much as I had expected,’ admitted Fryer.
‘Why was that?’
‘Captain Bligh seemed to vent his annoyance more upon Mr Christian.’
‘Really!’ probed Bunyan. ‘Yet the failure had not been his?’
‘No,’ agreed the master. ‘But for the first few days after we sailed from Tahiti, Captain Bligh seemed only to criticise Mr Christian.’
‘About what?’
‘Everything,’ generalised the witness. ‘Finally it was a row about coconuts. Mr Christian was reduced to tears.’
‘Coconuts!’ echoed Bunyan, incredulously.
Fryer smiled, in nervous embarrassment.
‘Everyone had traded just before we left Tahiti,’ explained Fryer. ‘The islanders have no knowledge of iron and regard a nail as a pauper regards a guinea. The ship was packed with every provision available, bought with a few nails. And every man had his own supply of coconuts, even Captain Bligh. A day or two before the mutiny, he decided one had been stolen. So he mustered the whole crew and demanded the culprit own up, otherwise the rum would be stopped and the rations reduced by half.’
‘For a coconut!’ pressed Bunyan. ‘He made this threat because of the loss of one coconut?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Fryer. ‘Mr Christian admitted to it. He said he’d been thirsty and had taken one for its milk, intending to replace it.’
‘What happened?’
‘The captain went into a tremendous rage. He insisted that not one coconut but half his supply had been stolen and cut the officer’s rum ration by half.’
‘He imposed that penalty upon a man to whom he’d willingly provided the key for his own liquor cabinet on the outward voyage?’ asked Bunyan, curiously.
‘Yes,’ agreed Fryer.
‘And Mr Christian was deeply affected?’
‘Mr Christian was a much pressured man,’ expanded Fryer. ‘Captain Bligh had told him he would only need him to help get the vessel through the dangers of Endeavour Straits and then he would make his life such hell that he would jump overboard to his death rather than face it.’
‘So Mr Christian carefully planned the overthrow of Captain Bligh?’
‘No, sir,’ disagreed Fryer.
‘What?’ demanded the President.
‘I mean it wasn’t carefully planned, sir,’ qualified Fryer. ‘It has always been my thinking that it was a spontaneous thing. Captain Bligh felt otherwise.’
‘How do you know that?’ demanded Bunyan.
‘He spoke about it often, after we were cast adrift.’
‘I’m glad we’ve reached that point,’ smiled Bunyan. ‘Let’s talk about the open boat voyage.’
Fryer clenched his hands behind his back.
‘It was an incredible voyage,’ tempted Bunyan.
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Fryer, cautiously.
‘Remind the court of it,’ demanded the lawyer.
‘We all thought, in the first few minutes, that we were lost,’ remembered Fryer. ‘The sea was to within inches of the gunwales … there were eighteen of us in the boat and hardly room to sit down. We got the launch as ship-shape as possible and Captain Bligh said we were setting sail for Timor.’
‘How far was that?’ intruded Bunyan.
‘1,200 leagues.’
‘Over 3,600 miles?’ clarified the layman.
Fryer nodded.
‘We landed at Tofoa,’ recalled Fryer. ‘But the natives attacked, trying to stone us. In escaping, John Norton, the quarter-master, was killed. They tried chasing us in their canoes, but we threw clothes overboard. In stopping to pick them up, the natives lost the chance to overhaul us.’
‘Whose idea was that subterfuge?’ asked Hood, curiously.
‘The captain’s,’ said Fryer. ‘After that, we decided to keep at sea as much as possible. We made land on several islands to gather shellfish and on three occasions we were almost beaten under by storms …’
‘Was your food sufficient?’ asked Bunyan.
‘Captain Bligh firmly rationed it.’
‘To what?’
‘An ounce and a half of bread a day … an ounce, raw, of any seabird we captured … we even ate the innards … and a gill of water …’
‘Scarcely enough to live?’
‘Scarcely,’ agreed Fryer. The man did know of the enquiry demanded by Bligh, the master knew.
‘There was an unusual incident when you arrived at the Dutch settlement, was there not?’
‘Sir?’
‘Was there not, on the instigation of Captain Bligh, an official enquiry into the conduct of yourself and another man to be a witness at this enquiry, Mr Purcell?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Fryer.
‘Well?’ insisted Bunyan.
Fryer hesitated. Damn Bligh, he thought. Damn Bligh and the Bounty and Fletcher Christian and the very day he’d become associated with any of them.
‘Captain Bligh alleged we were near mutinous on the voyage …’ said Fryer, at last.
‘Were you afraid for your life, in that launch?’ demanded Bunyan.
‘Aye, sir. All the time,’ agreed Fryer, definitely.
‘Yet, afraid though you were, there was serious dissent between you and your captain?’
Fryer nodded. He felt very tired, he realised.
‘Why?’
‘We … Mr Purcell and myself … believed he was taking more than his fair share of the food.’
‘Was he?’ broke in Hood.
‘It was never proven,’ conceded Fryer. ‘In Timor we publicly withdrew the charge and the captain said he would forget the matter.’
The President sensed the changing mood among the officers around him. This was a very different account than that which they had expected to hear, he thought.
‘Would you serve again with Captain Bligh?’ demanded Bunyan, suddenly.
‘A naval officer serves upon whichever ship he is appointed,’ replied Fryer, formally. After today, he thought, he’d be lucky to serve with anybody, anywhere.
‘Would you serve again with Captain Bligh?’ insisted Bunyan, doggedly. ‘Or would you ask the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to reconsider their decision?’
‘I would ask the Lords of the Admiralty to reconsider their decision,’ conceded Fryer.
Bunyan sat down, abruptly, content at what he’d done. He stared at Fryer. Poor bugger, he thought. A shifty, unpleasant man, perhaps, but he’d been mauled in that questioning.
The prisoner Morrison strained for the President’s attention and Hood nodded, curtly. It took Morrison only minutes to establish that he had provided the castaways with weapons and in full view of the launch been threatened by Churchill because of his action. Hood frowned when the man resumed his seat. He had expected more questioning on the lines opened by the lawyer. Perhaps, thought the President, the prisoner was content with what Bunyan had brought out.
Hood shifted, cramped in his chair. It had been a long sitting, he thought.
‘We’ll adjourn,’ he announced, without reference to the other officers.
‘An odd affair,’ offered Sir Andrew Snape Hammond, as they filed out of the cabin.
Hood nodded.
‘Can’t see, from the evidence, that there’s any doubt about the guilt of most of them,’ said the President.
‘Oh, not at all,’ agreed the officer. ‘The mutiny is clear enough. But Bligh seems to have brought much of the troubles upon his own head.’
‘He does that,’ agreed Hood. ‘An odd man … a very odd man.’
Edward Christian had been reading the notes of Bunyan’s clerk for over an hour, hunched close to the candle and never once looking up from the thick sheaf of paper on the table before him. From the occasional grunt the younger lawyer guessed that Fletcher Christian’s brother was very satisfied.
At last the older man pushed the transcript away and smiled across at his colleague. Before speaking he went to the decanter and poured them both wine.
‘Magnificent, Mr Bunyan,’ he congratulated. ‘I could not have succeeded better myself.’
And he couldn’t, Edward accepted. The man had exceeded his every hope.
‘I detected a very different attitude in the court, too,’ said Bunyan, warmed by the praise.
Edward went back to the desk and began carefully arranging the papers into their original orderly pile.
‘I shall publish this, in manuscript form,’ decided Edward, suddenly. ‘This and whatever else you succeed in establishing, during the hearing.’
Bunyan frowned, unbalanced by the announcement.
‘To what end?’ he asked.
Edward hesitated at the question, then smiled. Of course, he realised, the other man wouldn’t know the depth of his determination.
‘To tell the world about Captain Bligh,’ he elaborated. ‘And wipe away the disgrace from my brother’s name.’
He lifted his glass, gazing down at the other man.
‘I give you a toast, Mr Bunyan. “To the destruction of Captain William Bligh.”’